Mastering Two Songs Live!

 Firstly I mastered the song Game Boy by AnneAnne, a synthpop-ish piece that is an astoundingly impressive display of composing, lyric-writing, instrumental performance, singing, arranging, production, and mixing… that all coalesces into a bangin’ track filled with clever and hilarious 80s and 90s nostalgia tech puns.

 Next up was Dimenensional Drift by Human Synthetics, an amazing atmospheric d&b piece, replete with crushing breakbeats and enveloping bass that continually shifts and evolves as it progresses, evoking a dark and moody vibe that is enticing and addictive to listen to and get lost in.

 For both pieces i used my newly-developed Finalization effects pack and template for Ableton Live Suite 12, demonstrating how it allows you to get as deep as you need to with professional mastering and high-quality results with no need for external VST plugins.

 It was a great joy to work on finalization of both of these songs on-the-fly at the Music Production Club meeting! Thanks to both of the artists for contributing their songs and to Brian Funk for hosting the meeting plus recording and producing the video.

 If you want to hit me up for audio mastering, feel free to use the contact form or check in over at the Animus Invidious Discord.


 And no i don’t use generative ai for any aspect of writing this blog because that would be lame, unimaginative, boring, below my standards of quality and veracity, and personally unfulfilling.

Guitaritis Pack Updated for Live 12!

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐆𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐬?
 Guitaritis is a deluxe suite of sophisticated amp racks, designed to make the most of Live’s Amp and Cab devices for electric stringed sounds, plus various effect racks to further modify and bolster them.
 
 It Includes…
𝟹𝟶 𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚋𝚘 𝙰𝚖𝚙𝚜.
𝟽 𝚂𝚙𝚕𝚢𝚝 𝙰𝚖𝚙𝚜.
𝟹 𝙼𝚒𝚜𝚌. 𝙰𝚖𝚙𝚜.
𝟹𝟶 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚎𝚛 𝙿𝚎𝚍𝚊𝚕𝚜.
𝟷𝟸 𝙼𝚒𝚜𝚌. 𝚁𝚊𝚌𝚔𝚜.
𝟹7 𝙼𝙸𝙳𝙸 𝙲𝚑𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚜.

Continue reading →

Bussification Pack Update!

 Hi, i’m happy to report that the 𝓑𝓾𝓼𝓼𝓲𝓯𝓲𝓬𝓪𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷 pack update for Live 12.3 has dropped!

Brian Funk tries out the bussification effects on a mix.

  This is the first of planned updates to every PerforModule pack in order to implement the latest Live 12 features. Continue reading to see the User Manual, the Changelog, and D&D-style Effect Rack Statblocks.

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Plugin Review: BassTame by lkjb


BassTame by lkjb

‎‎‎ BassTame from the KVR Developer Challenge 2023 is purported to be a bass compressor, yet level-independent. The blurb about it says the energy of the bass signal is compared to the overall signal to determine the bass reduction. lkjb‘s ReFine and QRange plugins are oft used and much beloved, so I was intrigued to find out what this new one had to offer. I’ll break it down based upon my experience testing the plugin out.

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Tempo Dynamics

When applying dynamic effects, we are rarely going to need the entire timing ranges available, depending on the tempo, right? The new Tempo Dynamics pack provides go-to racks with minimum and maximum values hard-wired to ranges most potentially useful, given the chosen tempo — avoiding values that are likely too fast or too slow to be helpful.

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New Years 2023 Freebie: “Introspection” Pack.

Effect Racks for Live Intro.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎ ‎Since my son has now acquired Ableton Live 11 Intro, I thought it would be interesting to make a pack of effects that utilize only effects native to that iteration of the software. These include Audio Effect Rack, Auto Filter, Auto Pan, Beat Repeat, Channel EQ, Chorus-Ensemble, Compressor, Delay, EQ Three, Erosion, Gate, Grain Delay, LFO, Limiter, Looper, Phaser-Flanger, Redux, Reverb, Saturator, Tuner, and Utility. This is no paltry collection to smirk at! Quite a range of possibilities. But also — a nice change of pace, being arbitrarily limited in options according to what I am used to as a rack craftor. I saw it as an exciting challenge. At the end, I’m super proud of what I’ve come up with. Methinks I’ll definitely be using these racks in the full version of Live 11 Suite aplenty moving forwards.

~`~

-> Download the Introspection pack for Ableton Live Intro, Standard, or Suite <-

(or acquire via Gumroad if you prefer).

Read about the process of the device creation below.


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New series of Single-Purpose Racks for Ableton Live 11: “Zinglez”

𝒁𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒍𝒆𝒛 is a new series of individual one-dollar racks for Ableton Live 11 by PerforModule.

Simple and straightforward.
Just grab what the ones that entice you the most.
Ignore everything else!

Read about them below.

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Social Isolation Freebie: “Secret Weapon” Racks.


***Note: “Sweetie Pies” has been updated for Live 11 Suite! Grab the Live 11 version here.

(For the original Live 10 version, continue below.)



While we’re going through some crazy times, it has been heartwarming to experience how humans have upped their compassion game in response to shared crisis. I’ve seen more freebies and crazy deals going on this past week than any other time i remember, which seems because people want to help each other, share and be nice (well, not so much a certain political faction in the usa who seems to prefer that regular people suffer as much as possible. But that’s another topic). With graciousness and care for their fellows is how humans should act, rather than trying to take advantage of each other sleazily—which happens all too much.

In this spirit, i am offering up my super secret stash of “Sweetie Pies”—a small collection of effect racks for Ableton Live Suite 10, each crafted to address a specific need in a sweet manner. These are highly practical yet fun racks with the primary purpose of “getting stuff done”.

i WAS planning on releasing this pack eventually anyways once it grew a bit more, but to expedite the process of getting you the goodies, i’ve decided to simply omit the not-quite-finished devices, give everything a good once-over, and release the pack for free as it is now.




SO WHAT ARE THESE GOODIES OF WHICH YOU SPEAK?

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Narrow Down Your Plugin Needs

So Many Plugins

Brand new plugins… promotional sales on plugins… they are SO tempting. But do you really need that new compressor plugin that just dropped?

In order to assess which plugin types are lacking in your toolbox, i recommend making a spreadsheet of all the plugins you own by category. You might discover, as i did, that you have such a vast variety of compressor options to choose from, it’s likely that you won’t benefit a whole lot from purchasing any more of them. You also might discover, like me, that you’re somewhat lacking in gate plugins, and could indeed benefit from picking up a few new models. Etc… Continue reading →